1,720,996 research outputs found
Low-tech passive solar design concepts and bio-based material solutions for reducing life cycle GHG emissions of buildings-Life cycle assessment of regenerative design strategies (2/2)
No full textIn order to achieve the necessary reduction of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and decarbonization of building construction and operation, both high-and low-tech building design strategies are promoted. Amongst particularly promising strategies are the deployment of energy efficiency measures, for reducing operational energy use and related impacts, as well as the application of low-carbon, bio-based construction materials, for reducing embodied impacts. In part two of our study on the life cycle assessment (LCA) of regenerative design strategies, LCA is applied to investigate the environmental impacts and reduction potentials of strategies at building level by analyzing two low-tech, passive building concepts-the be2226 building and the N11 SolarHouse-in both their original designs as well as optimized alternatives applying bio-based material solutions. The analysis includes three steps. In a first step the life cycle GHG emissions of the original buildings are assessed, revealing strengths and weaknesses on both operational and embodied GHG emissions. Environmental hotspots are identified across environmental indicators, life cycle stages and building elements. In a second step the case studies are remodeled with bio-based building element alternatives showing substantial embodied GHG emissions reduction potential compared to the original case studies. Finally, the results of all building variants are compared with climate targets for buildings revealing that the N11 building meets established climate targets already in its original version, and that a straw-based material optimization can even enable meeting more ambitious climate targets.We thank the architects of the case study buildings for providing the necessary information on their respective projects, namely Sascha Schär of N11 architects (N11 SolarHouse), and Dietmar Eberle and team (be2226). Martin Röck received funding through a DOC Fellowship of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW) [2019/1]
Response: commentary: system expansion and substitution in LCA: a lost opportunity of ISO 14044 amendment 2
Full text linkA Commentary onCommentary: System Expansion and Substitution in LCA: A Lost Opportunity of ISO 14044 Amendment 2by Heijungs, R., Allacker, K., Benetto, E., Brandão, M., Guinée, J., Schaubroeck, S., Schaubroeck, T., and Zamagni, A. (2021). Front. Sustain. 2:692055. doi: 10.3389/frsus.2021.692055</p
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Full text link“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Full text linkWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Biogenic carbon in buildings: a critical overview of LCA methods
Full text linkThe increasing pressure to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings has motivated specialists to develop low-carbon products incorporating bio-based materials. The impact of these materials is often evaluated through life-cycle assessment (LCA), but there is no clear consensus on how to model the biogenic carbon released or absorbed during their life-cycle. This study investigates and compares existing methods used for biogenic carbon assessment. The most common approaches were identified through an extensive literature review. The possible discrepancies between the results obtained when adopting different methods are made evident through an LCA study of a timber building. Results identified that land-use and land-use-change (LULUC) impacts and carbon-storage credits are not included in most existing methods. In addition, when limiting the system boundary to certain life-cycle stages, methods using the –1/+1 criterion can lead to net negative results for the global warming (GW) score, failing to provide accurate data to inform decision-making. Deviation between the results obtained from different methods was 16% at the building scale and between 35% and 200% at the component scale. Of all the methods studied, the dynamic approach of evaluating biogenic carbon uptake is the most robust and transparent. Practice relevance This critical review identified key methodological differences between the most commonly used methods and recommended standards for biogenic carbon accounting in buildings. This indicates a lack of consensus and guidance for conducting LCAs of bio-based construction products and buildings using bio-based materials. A case study applying four different LCA approaches on a timber building identified the inability to compare results and create proper benchmarks. Moreover, different methods lead designers to pursue different strategies to reduce a building’s carbon footprint. Regulators, the construction industry and the construction products industry are directly affected by this lack of comparability. This research highlights the flaws and benefits of commonly used methods. A clear and grounded recommendation is for practitioners to adopt dynamic biogenic carbon accounting for future assessments of bio-based materials and buildings
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Full text linkWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
Energy simulation and LCA for macro-scale analysis of eco-innovations in the housing stock
No full textPurpose Energy consumption of buildings is one of the major drivers of environmental impacts. Life cycle assessment
(LCA) may support the assessment of burdens and benefits associated to eco-innovations aiming at reducing these
environmental impacts. Energy efficiency policies however typically focus on the meso- or macro-scale, while interventions
are typically taken at the micro-scale. This paper presents an approach that bridges this gap by using the results
of energy simulations and LCA studies at the building level to estimate the effect of micro-scale eco-innovations on the
macro-scale, i.e. the housing stock in Europe.
Methods LCA and dynamic energy simulations are integrated to accurately assess the life cycle environmental burdens
and benefits of eco-innovation measures at the building level. This allows quantitatively assessing the effectiveness of
these measures to lower the energy use and environmental impact of buildings. The analysis at this micro-scale focuses
on 24 representative residential buildings within the EU. For the upscaling to the EU housing stock, a hybrid approach is
used. The results of the micro-scale analysis are upscaled to the EU housing stock scale by adopting the eco-innovation
measures to (part of) the EU building stock (bottom–up approach) and extrapolating the relative impact reduction
obtained for the reference buildings to the baseline stock model. The reference buildings in the baseline stock model
have been developed by European Commission-Joint Research Centre based on a statistical analysis (top–down approach)
of the European housing stock. The method is used to evaluate five scenarios covering various aspects: building
components (building envelope insulation), technical installations (renewable energy), user behaviour (night setback of
the setpoint temperature), and a combined scenario.
Results and discussion Results show that the proposed combination of bottom–up and top–down approaches allow accurately
assessing the impact of eco-innovation measures at the macro-scale. The results indicate that a combination of policy measures is
necessary to lower the environmental impacts of the building stock to a significative extent.
Conclusions Interventions addressing energy efficiency at building level may lead to the need of a trade-off between resource
efficiency and environmental impacts. LCA integrated with dynamic energy simulation may help unveiling the potential improvements
and burdens associated to eco-innovations.JRC.D.1 - Bio-econom
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